Breakout Brainstorming Session Summaries

Following are summaries for each of the ten DEEP 2012 breakout brainstorming sessions.

Day One

Analyzing success factors and causes of failures of e-accessibility policies and programs in specific areas; Impact of e-accessibility, voluntary initiatives, regulations, micro and macroeconomic perspectives.

Goals and Assignments, Day 1 Breakouts, May 24th

• Gather experience and insight into strategies that do and do not work and the factors that influence their success and failure
• Pool this experience and insight and generate new promising approaches and strategies that have not yet been tried.

Each was asked to generate:

• 5 successful strategies that significantly have advanced accessibility and inclusion in the domain, listing the factors that contributed to their success.
• 3 strategies that have failed, possible reasons for the failure, and lessons to be learned from the failure.
• 3 new promising approaches and strategies that have not yet been tried and steps that can be implemented to put these strategies to a test.

Accessible Education

In a Knowledge Economy education becomes ever more critical. With economic constraints, increased class size, and decreased time to prepare curriculum, more and more students become marginalized. What are creative ways to support accessible Inclusive Education for students with diverse needs? How does this align with the transformation of education? What has worked and what has not worked?

Moderator:

Lizbeth Goodman, SMARTlab University College Dublin (UCD)

Rapporteur:

Catherine Fichten, Adaptech Research Network, Dawson College

Successful Strategies

Successful strategies that significantly have advanced accessibility and inclusion in the domain:

• Omnibus legislation – national disability strategy
• Inclusion of people with disabilities
• “Mainstreaming” all children
• Universal design
• Awareness
• “Adaptable” general use ICTs
• Buy in from the top
• Champion

Strategies that have failed

• Too many resources/information
• “Perfectionism”
• Projects with inadequate buy-in top and/or bottom
• Inadequate foresight/pre-planning before implementation
• Inadequate programs for people with intellectual impairments
• “You cannot…” and “Don’t aim too high”

Promising Strategies /\& Required Steps for Implementation

• Support students with internships and provide ICTs for first year on the job (government funding)
• “Immersive ICT experiences” + effective ICT solutions
• Multidisciplinary support team for student
• Do not rely on experts but disperse accessibility throughout organization
• Cross-disciplinary teams
• Transforming documents to XML for access to all

Examples, Case Studies

None provided.

Workplace Accommodation

Unemployment among persons with disabilities continues to be disproportionately high; the social and economic costs of unemployment are staggering. What are some creative ways to break this impasse? Which strategies have worked and which have not?

Moderator:

Pina D’Intino, Senior Manager, Enabling Solutions and Support Management, Scotiabank Group

Rapporteur:

David Rojas, Business Development and Marketing Director, Trust for the Americas, OAS

Successful Strategies

Successful strategies that significantly have advanced accessibility and inclusion in the domain:

• Centralization of funding and Procedures
• Evaluation of the accommodation process
• Engagement of different stakeholders both internal and external in regard of diversity
• Increase education:
  • For employers and employees
  • Through mentoring and coaching,
  • Internal support network
  • To promote and foster TRUST
  • Break the traditional paradigms about disabilities medical model)

Strategies that have failed

• Evolution of process: Centralization or Decentralization of the accommodation process and funding
• Training through orientation and job preparedness at the hiring and ongoing
• Lack of corporate culture to support the accommodation and the understanding of inclusion and diversity (lack of internal support network)
• Eradicate the fear of inclusion both employee and employer (negative culture)

Promising Strategies /\& Required Steps for Implementation

• Education as it relates to job and specific business training (similar than the POLITEC in MILAN).
• Sharing good practices, successes and lessons learnt through programs such as Computer Lab, Job Fairs, PWD as ambassadors)
• Include Accessibility in all curricula
• Involve Academia and the education sector to create awareness and knowledge among potential employees of accommodation anticipate the situation. (Addressing the transition)
• Changing the definition of Disability
• Development of more usable and accessible technologies that can assist a person understanding their real needs to improve workplace integration and inclusion
• Leverage programs such as Advancing Women in IT to/for PWD and employment
• Help PWD the how-to’s of Lobbying
• Start using and sharing Check list about accessibility and accommodation (not reinvent)
• Create relationships among different sectors such as government and different industries
• Using diversity and inclusive lens

Examples, Case Studies

None provided.

Broadcasting and New Media

Access to culture, participation in the public discourse, representation in popular media all help to create a culture of inclusion. What are strategies that work and what are strategies that have failed in promoting inclusive access to and participation in media?

Moderator:

John Harding, Past–Secretary General, North American Broadcasters Association (NABA)

Rapporteur:

Christine Staddon, Canadian Abilities Foundation

Successful Strategies

Successful strategies that significantly have advanced accessibility and inclusion in the domain:

• None provided

Strategies that have failed

• None provided

Promising Strategies /\& Required Steps for Implementation

• Regulation
• There is need for research to show success and influence policy decisions
• Forward thinking regulations are being based on what is happening now not what will happening soon
• Multiple regulations different
• Marketing
• Moving around copyright issues
• Media depictions (content)
• Cross platform, accessible out of the box. I.e. iPhone, iPad. Consumers are being vocal about what works and doesn’t work through websites and social networking. Example a version of Skype was inaccessible and consumers approached them and they produced a new version
• Regulators in Canada should look more like regulators in other areas. CRTC does not have the ability to fine and does not regulate the internet
• Separating the newly created content (audio description) from the original photo

Examples, Case Studies,

None provided

Telecommunications

We live in perpetually connected societies. More and more essential and daily services are delivered through mobile and interactive applications and networks. What strategies have helped to ensure that persons with disabilities can fully benefit from this connectivity and from these services and what strategies have not worked?

Moderator:

Andrea Saks, Convener, ITU JCA-AHF

Rapporteur:

Gary Birch, Executive Director, Neil Squire Society

Successful Strategies

Successful strategies that significantly have advanced accessibility and inclusion in the domain:

• Combination of stick and carrots for standards/legislation. E.g. public procurement.
• Hearing aid compatibility (HAC) good example of legislation that references a technical standard. Standard can evolve with new technology without the need for new legislation.
• Including consumers in development process from the start of the design phase. Universal design. Save on expensive refits.

Strategies that have failed

• Without good regulation with accountability we don’t get consistent accessibility.
• Not including persons with disability and domain experts in the standards creation process we don’t get accessibility.
• Rapid pace of technology change makes it challenging for standards to keep up.

Promising Strategies /\& Required Steps for Implementation

Three new promising approaches and strategies that have not yet been tried and steps that can be implemented to put these strategies to a test

• Require training on accessibility best practices as part of post-secondary education for designers, developers, and IT professionals.
• Look at standardization at international perspective, and harmonize policies, interoperability, compatibility, for persons with disability.
• Abstracting of interactions with devices, to achieve personalization
• Stop waiting around, just do it. With clear consultation from all stakeholders.
• Recognize the cost of devices and services for persons with disability.

Examples, Case Studies

None provided

Contents and Services

Every form of content and almost all interactive services are now delivered through online systems. Issues of accessibility interact with issues such as identity management, security and access. What are creative ways to ensure that online content and services are accessible? What are some threats to greater accessibility? What strategies have not been successful? What are some of the solutions that can be reused or repurposed?

Moderator:

Kiran Kaja, Accessibility Engineer, Adobe Systems

Rapporteur:

Tom Smith, VP of Sales and Business Development, Ephox Corporation

Points of Interest:

• Current state of accessibility of online content and services in different countries/regions: Are some countries more successful than others? If so, what are the reasons?
• Can WCAG 2.0 and related resources be leveraged better to improve accessibility on the web? If so, how?
• How can we ensure new technologies and standards such as HTML5 include accessibility as part of the specification?
• What technologies are required for creating accessible content?
• Can regulation help/hinder accessibility when it comes to online content and services?
• How can regulation keep up with technological developments?
• What are institutional/organisational barriers to accessibility and how can they be overcome?
• When issues like security, privacy get a lot of coverage in popular media, why is accessibility lagging behind?
• Can we think of any innovative approaches to create more awareness about web accessibility?
• Is increased popularity of mobile web helping accessibility or creating additional barriers?

Successful Strategies

Successful strategies that significantly have advanced accessibility and inclusion in the domain:

• Enforcing accessibility regulations, with impact of lack of compliance being unprofitable for companies.
• Rewarding accessibility compliance in developing countries with social points that the World Bank used to determine when to extend loans.
• Regulations that require organizations create policies and report on progress towards compliance with those policies.
• Measuring services organizations on customer satisfaction can be a motivator for accessibility compliance, as inaccessible websites negatively impact satisfaction.
• Push /\& Pull – Regulations can push compliance. Pull can be created by
  • Making it easier to comply through better content authoring tools which create compliant content while the content is being authored.
  • Positioning the benefits of accessibility in terms of SEO improvement and alignment with Mobile Web Best Practices. Promote benefits as human enablement, not just disability enablement.

Strategies that have failed

• Not enforcing, or allowing self-enforcement, of compliance with accessibility guidelines can result in compliance being de-prioritized
• Assuming it is one tool, thing, or action that will make content accessible. The entire process must take into consideration accessibility compliance.
• The word Accessibility may in itself be somewhat detrimental to adoption, as opposed to Inclusive Design which could resonate with more people. Many don’t understand what Web Accessibility actually means
• Reaching out to businesses with non-compliant websites to educate them on WCAG and encourage them to become compliant.

Promising Strategies /\& Required Steps for Implementation

• End user testing which takes into account accessibility, as part of an overall accessibility focused process.
• Create authoring tools which, without author intervention, automatically assess and create accessibility guideline compliant content.
• Government challenge grants would likely be required to fund development of such breakthrough tools
• Processes to create accessible content must be simplified.
• Awareness of need and value of being accessible must be increased throughout society
• Create some metric related to Inclusivity (vs. Accessibility) that reflects degree of compliance

Examples, Case Studies

None provided

Day Two: Levers

Acting with Levers: multi-stakeholders’ perspectives.

Goals and Assignments, Day 2 Breakouts, May 25th:

Think beyond current efforts and approaches
Step back and introduce new perspectives outside the realm of accessibility, rethink and reframe the problem
Each was asked to generate:

• 3 current assumptions or conventions that block progress toward greater inclusion in the domain:
• 2 to 3 disruptive trends that have or may destabilize conditions that maintain these barriers.
• 2 to 3 side benefits of accessibility and inclusion in the domain, and potential allies that might value these benefits (list names of groups and influential individuals if possible).
• 3 ways to leverage disruptive trends in the domain and steps that should be taken to take advantage of these trends.

Technology Levers

New publishing standards supporting digital readers bring the structure required to make documents accessible to individuals with print impairments, cloud services offer a way to pool resources, digital curriculum makes it easier to share alternative formats, and online networks enable crowdsourcing for things like captions and descriptions. What emerging technical trends can be leveraged to enable greater inclusion and how?

Moderator:

Dan Shire, IBM Interactive

Rapporteur:

Colin Clark, FLOE Project and accessible OER, OCAD University

Roadblocks

Current assumptions or conventions that block progress toward greater inclusion in the domain:

1. Assumption: That you have to build it first, and then make it accessible
2. People with disabilities aren’t participating enough in education and design (and not part of the target market and business case) Empathy: Isn’t it too hard to involve people with disabilities?
3. Assumption: It costs more to make it accessible (but doesn’t everything cost?)
4. Accessibility isn’t a priority, and it isn’t clear what accessibility is
5. What is good enough?
6. Lack of awareness:
   1. There are lots of great access features, but the community needs to be aware of them and how to use them (consumers)
   2. Types of tools available to help make an accessible product (creators)
7. Government regulations are written too narrowly to foster innovation; lest companies do the minimum amount of work to be compliant, but no more
8. Technologies that don’t provide APIs or the creation of accessible alternatives
9. Assistive technologies are always playing catch up with new and emerging technologies, and new technologies often make it hard for developers to know how to do the right thing (accessibility should be automatic, removing it should be an effort)
10. Standards: many standards being created, often without any consideration of accessibility or bolted on later
11. Mobile devices: the trend towards smaller form factors and their incredible ubiquity
12. Accessibility features are rarely seen or advertised as useful for everyone
13. Disconnect between openness /\& flexibility of consumer technology vs. enterprise tendency to standardize and dictate homogenous solutions
14. Education: Designers, developers, business students, etc. rarely are exposed to inclusion and accessibility in their course work: no exposure to diversity
15. Accessibility support: can be difficult to pay for and administer technology accommodations (e.g. assistive technologies), especially for big companies
16. Help with using assistive technologies: the burden is on the user to figure it out themselves—Assistive technologies aren’t designed to be easy to use

Summary of Roadblocks

Education (training the next generation of creators)

1. Design and development process (better tools, standards)
2. Support and integration (how do I use assistive technology /\& built-in features?)
3. Participation and leadership (in education, in product cycle, support)
4. Models: costs, policy, legislation, standards, ROI

Disruptive Trends

1. Mobile devices, especially tablets (e.g. cost revolution in the AAC space, platform and form factor flexible designs, etc.) (but also challenges to sustainable business models with commodity app prices)
2. Away from the medical model towards designing for environmental barriers and designing for aging and linguistic diversity
3. User involvement and community: reviews, crowd sourcing, open access and open source. Consumers are becoming producers, too.
4. Legislation:
   • The impact of good legislation on driving participation in accessibility (e.g. AODA, UN Convention on Rights of People with Disabilities)
   • Drive towards harmonization of legislation globally will make it easier to launch world-wide products (enabled by WCAG 2.0)
5. Intellectual Property: how can we think of ownership in a different way so that the community benefits, but can still profit?
6. Era of cross-platform support on desktop and mobile (roughly equal share of browser market, mobile device market) and the rise of browser-based, standards-based software (HTML5, etc.) (this is both a positive and negative disruption)
7. Widespread use of search engines and increased value of semantics and alternative formats.

Side Benefits and Allies

Two to three side benefits of accessibility and inclusion in the domain, and potential allies that might value these benefits (list names of groups and influential individuals if possible).

1. Side benefit: Increased usability! (e.g., the benefits for all of us today from the real-time captions)
2. Allies: the aging, second language learners, low literacy, ICF
3. Side benefit: greater awareness of accessibility as a result of standards and legislation
4. Also an attitudinal shift: it’s not about disability, but about needing something different, which we all experience
5. Younger generation as a “silent ally” (e.g. kids using closed captions with the sound off so parents think they’re not watching TV)
6. Side benefit: accessibility mandates can shift into user delight (e.g. captions make for a better teaching/learning experience, etc.) “Aha! moments”

Leveraging Disruptive Trends

Three ways to leverage disruptive trends in the domain and steps that should be taken to take advantage of these trends:

1. Youth: encourage curriculum development at primary school level about diversity and inclusion
2. Research, outreach and awareness
   1. Do more usability research and publicize
   2. Generate and share better numbers on accessibility/inclusion ROI
   3. Personal story collection and sharing: leverage user delight and stories to help inspire and explain

Economic Levers, Demographics and Market Forces

The aging of the Western world produces a large market of demanding consumers who experience disabilities. Meanwhile, the nature of our changing economy requires a diversity of labour skills, perspectives and greater collaboration. Tools that support a distributed work force have the potential to make tasks and workflow accessible to workers with disabilities. What economic disruptions and trends and relevant policies can be leveraged to enable greater inclusion?

Moderator:

Rich Donovan, Managing Partner, IPS Insights

Rapporteur:

Kevin Stolarick, Martin Prosperity Institute, University of Toronto

Roadblocks

Current assumptions or conventions that block progress toward greater inclusion in the domain:

1. Availability of data, evidence /\& stories that create value
2. Getting it into business language
3. Macro conversations but need micro examples
4. Cultural/branding bias against disability
5. Transitioning the market from disability products to mainstream products

Disruptive Trends

1. Value creation and making money
2. Branding
3. Using advertising to change the language and discussion

Side Benefits and Allies

Two to three side benefits of accessibility and inclusion in the domain, and potential allies that might value these benefits (list names of groups and influential individuals if possible).

1. Curb-cuts increase sales
2. Putting disability issues into a customer framework
3. Citizen/consumer engagement – asking people what they want

Leveraging Disruptive Trends

Three ways to leverage disruptive trends in the domain and steps that should be taken to take advantage of these trends:

1. Public procurement
2. Business /\& university engagement
3. Teaching universal design – not only disability-centric

Examples/Case Studies

• Japan
• Easy to use cell phones
• Maxwell House containers
• Green economy

CRPD and Policy Levers

The broad support of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) shows a growing global commitment to equal access for persons with disabilities. The negative impact of inequality on a society has become an unarguable and daily-emphasized fact. How can we leverage the CRPD commitments and the current pressures to change policies to achieve solid and sustainable progress toward equal access leveraging Information and Communication Technologies? How can international cooperation foster standards, global economies of scale and resource sharing?

Moderator:

Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict

Rapporteur:

Christine Staddon, Canadian Abilities Foundation

Roadblocks

Current assumptions or conventions that block progress toward greater inclusion in the domain:

1. Countries can read and understand their obligations under the convention differently. The convention does not tell countries how to implement the convention, which leaves the extent of implementation done at the state parties level
2. Some countries do not have the components/building block (funding/user groups instruments) in place to allow for participation of people with disabilities or to implement the articles of the convention
3. Lack of capacity (financial/practical) of people of disabilities to participate in the process and do the work such as shadow reports

Disruptive Trends

1. Providing clearer definitions of accessibility and look at not providing access as a form of indirect discrimination
2. Putting funding in place to allow participation and implementation of convention articles such as self-funding of individuals to participate in the process. It has been found that a clear/real picture of what is actually happening on the ground is only available if you consult directly with people with disabilities or their advocacy groups
3. Providing a network of experts at a high level to provide an overview of the key instruments that every state should have in place, what is to be delivered and how to deliver it.
4. Creation of a benchmarking tool with specific questions to avoid the dangers of self-assessment. At the same time make stronger reporting requirements so countries have to report on what they are doing and make it public

Side Benefits and Allies

Two to three side benefits of accessibility and inclusion in the domain, and potential allies that might value these benefits (list names of groups and influential individuals if possible).

Industry argues that requirements and regulations limit innovation. There is a need to dispel the myth that disability access harm innovation.

• It often spurs innovation.
• Influencers need to help designers understand if they design to the technical specifications they have a greater ability to increase their market share.

Leveraging Disruptive Trends

Three ways to leverage disruptive trends in the domain and steps that should be taken to take advantage of these trends:

1. Huge market opportunities such as North America and Europe to give incentives (laws, fines or carrots) to industry to pay more attention to accessibility. Example is the closed captioning requirement on TVs sold in the US.
2. Mobile devices as a gateway for people with disabilities a number of applications, technologies and resources. Huge enabler to bring a new world to people with disabilities .The trend is for all individuals to customize and personalize their mobile devices. This customization can be levered to increase access for people with disabilities.
3. There is a need for standardization on communication devices. This would allow users to rely on certain basic components being available in every piece of technology. To counteract that devices become obsolete quickly there are great possibilities in the cloud technology. One potential downside to the cloud is that users could run into accessibility blocks from their devices or the cloud
4. How to protect the standardization and the information of users in the cloud
5. Work on new ways to tackle issues of working with all groups around standards. Developers of accessible features can’t get the attention of service providers. We need to think of it as an ecosystem.
6. Education in other countries: Training and education for IT professionals, engineers and policy makers.
7. Industry uses the medical model of disability: We should be looking at the social model and functionality as opposed to separating people with of disabilities and aging population

Education and Training on Accessibility Self-Learning

When knowledge about accessible design and development is fully integrated into education and training, especially in fields relevant to ICT design, development, business processes and practices; products and services will begin to be designed accessibly by default, and inclusive design becomes a conventional and habitual process. Personalized learning systems support inclusive education and support students in learning to learn: a much needed skill in a knowledge economy. What potential digital curbcuts exist in the area of education and training? How can the transformation of education and training be leveraged to achieve greater inclusion?

Moderator:

Judith Snow, Independent Research Professional, OCAD U

Rapporteur:

Frances Jewett, AccessAbilityAdvantage

Roadblocks

Current assumptions or conventions that block progress toward greater inclusion in the domain:

1. Proposed solutions are too simple and too functionalized.
2. Not culturally and individualized approaches
3. Financial resources for: (Austerity ideology)
   1. Professional development – teachers need comfort with the technology
   2. More appropriate technology – assistive technologies hard to learn for teachers and students)
   3. Better trained educational Assistants
4. (access to web content) leadership commitment
5. Not enough advanced preparation/planning for needs for accessibility; too much response after pressure applied
6. Students lack control over their needs
7. Not adequate testing! And QA testing needs to be broader and have more “perspectives”
8. Adequate integration of access technologies with mainstream students
9. Curriculum design –
10. Residual segregation

Disruptive Trends

1. New technologies to support multimodal communication – e.g., social media
2. Encourage schools to use more innovative technologies to challenge students
3. Informal online learning
4. Unconferences/Bar Camps – www.accessibiltytcamps.org
5. Using social media – respond to questions
6. Global Accessibility Awareness Day (May 9) – Immersive activities at a grass roots level
7. Inclusive Design incorporated into the curriculum
8. Champions
9. Developers work with users, e.g., Extreme/paraprogramming approach so that the end users become invested in the design and development process.
10. List of Free and innovative technologies ($200 or less) for students with disabilities – www.adaptech.org
11. ELearning; eBooks etc.
12. Technology part of the innovation e.g., Rogers – cell phones
13. Possible for an extreme users’ work to be recognized in the global community, e.g. Mozilla program – World of Webcraft
14. Near peer education in medical education – next level up shares experience with the next level down.
15. Storage on the “cloud”

Side Benefits and Allies

Two to three side benefits of accessibility and inclusion in the domain, and potential allies that might value these benefits (list names of groups and influential individuals if possible).

• Debrief learning experiences

Leveraging Disruptive Trends

Three ways to leverage disruptive trends in the domain and steps that should be taken to take advantage of these trends:

1. Power of Peer-to-peer learning – “near peer” learning extends that to people who are close to the experience
2. Related to debriefing – learners involved in educator competency development
3. Use the experience of students/graduates as a resource for development and consultation.
4. Use litigation as a way to get the world to listen

Examples/Case Studies

• Person raised in a segregated educational environment by people who believe they are not capable creates people who believe they are not capable – this leads to unemployment and underemployment
• Failure – change in the classroom that had to go to the superintendent. Many parents are not able to do this.
• Run “Unconferences”/Bar Camps – 3-4 sessions using technology development for disabilities as focus
• Involve students in advocacy and planning and faculty engagement
• Flip the idea of providing service into a mutually based support system.
• Faculty build learning activities with students

Societal Trends

The occupy movement, flourishing youth initiatives for social justice, and global advocacy networks linked by online systems, all indicate a growing appetite for greater equality of opportunity and inclusion. What social trends can we leverage to achieve greater inclusion and accessibility for persons with disabilities?

Roadblocks

Current assumptions or conventions that block progress toward greater inclusion in the domain:

1. Bureaucracy/Policies:
   1. (possible solution: involvement of all stakeholders in the development of policy as well as the implementation of policy)
2. Lack of a common language
3. Lack of full genuine engagement in compliance
4. Lack of governance triggers
5. Gaps in the Compliance Framework due to lack of funding
6. The problem of perfectionism: the need to share small triumphs and achievements along the path rather than waiting for a ‘complete and perfect’ solution to be shared
7. The need to embrace open source tools and methods, to break down silos and ‘own’ our work jointly
8. The need for publication/making experiences public in print, online and on broadcast media
9. Problems of internal communications within universities- not only bureaucratic impasses but also inoperability of systems and disconnects of messages between departments an between cross-sector players
10. Perceived or real hierarchy of need/urgency cross-culturally (so the need to prioritise disability issues in cultures where peace, shelter /\& food are not the immediate issue- build momentum from culture to culture)
    1. (We need enforcers! We need real implementation; we need ways to push forward on disability research and compliance in ALL countries and need to establish a joined up plan to make real impact in appropriate ways…)
    2. The need for humour/ very visible public performances of compliance that demonstrate the added value to ALL from compliance in operation
    3. Recognition of the important role that women will play in this movement, as in all key cultural transformations…

Disruptive Trends

1. Communication Channels to be set up and made visible both online in real spaces internationally
   1. (perhaps via a Portal or Hub or Forum/Dialogue Space to link the many international sites)
2. Locative Gaming/competition games to make visible where the gaps in provision are + a volunteer and industry-sponsored cross-sector
   1. (idea: Give ‘power tokens’ to the players in the role of government officers in charge of implementing REAL GENUINE FULL compliance in game scenarios – so that to ‘win’ is to play the part of the government official with the power to enforce full implementation…)
3. Increased visibility of women leaders with disabilities – live and online: online advocacy linked to (Mobility International USA – WILD Women Network)
4. Global Prioritisation: build on successes / recognize the immediate needs of people

Side Benefits and Allies
Two to three side benefits of accessibility and inclusion in the domain, and potential allies that might value these benefits (list names of groups and influential individuals if possible).

• The Guerilla Grrrls
• The Occupy Movement
• Pride
• The Black Sash (South Africa in the 1980s)
• G3ICT
• MIUSA – Mobility International USA (Wild Women)
• The Independent Living Movement
• ACTRA
• The IDRC Masters Programme
• Sports organisations and Paralympics sportspeople
• Champions:
  • Stephen Hawking
  • Rick Hanson
  • Marly Mattin
  • Michael J Fox
  • All People should be our allies…

Leveraging Disruptive Trends

Three ways to leverage disruptive trends in the domain and steps that should be taken to take advantage of these trends:

1. For Disability Rights, the key would be to have one international site shared by all: a new lane on the Road to Digital Inclusion: a portal for virtual advocacy /\& mentorship – a Tardis which is the only way to enable movement for anyone (either everyone can move freely, or nobody can – it’s not a ditch or bypass or sub-lane on the superhighway).
2. We need an open source new DART – a DisabilityAdvocacyRightsTardis:- )
   1. Safe nourishing smaller fora with flexible rules + a larger joined up network
   2. /\& Having multiple different fora is effective in incubation of a diversity of ideas/ and the integration of those diverse ideas needs a bigger place… (the ACM achieves some of these aims)

MESSAGE: Finding allies in our day to day lives / leaving negative energies

Examples/Case Studies

• Chick2Go – the SMARTlab UK women with disabilities locative games group (remapping the streets of East London prior to the arrival of Olympic and Paralympic Games)
• Atlanta – cinema of disabilities with all cinemas in a city showing work
• Guerilla integration of disability work through allied organisations, without necessarily advertising the work as ‘about disability’
• Coney2012 as a model: stopping child abuse through social media mobilisation of a fully integrated cross-generational performance.
• Proposal for the future – a public intervention in humorous performance art mode
• A kind of international Occupy Movement on Wheels using Social Media: Occupy the main roads and car parks leading to parliaments and show videos on big screens of all the spaces where ramps run out (whilst women with disabilities and women with baby buggies and elderly women all ‘flash mob’ the spaces, banding together to lobby very visibly, and with humour, for fully accessible roads, buildings, homes: ‘knitting circles’ and ‘quilting bees’ that block roads…) – with joined up coverage from world-leading bloggers, broadcasters, etc.